52 
T HE P E R C II E R 0 N REVIEW 
Vice President Biir(licl<: As it lias been iiiciit ioiiccl. T will say 
to vou durins t'le past year or so they have iiicn ascd the capital 
stock, which rcciiiiri'd an uincndnicnt to the Constitution. That 
was snhniittr.l in written f(.ini to the fnll membership I believe 
hv mail, votiiifi "Ves" or ■"Xo" upon the clianfje. That is the 
oiily incident of an amendment to tlie Constitution that I know 
of since being on the Board. 
It is self-evident you could not amend the Constitution here 
tonight if you voted all the proxies l)ecause it requires a majority 
vote of tiie memliersliip as I lUKhrstand it, and there is no 
majority here, if you add all the ]in>\ies to what we have now. 
Vice President Burdick: Now you understand how this little 
minority can really be the majority. Now, if you have some 
policy to suggest as to the a Hairs of the Percheron Society that 
you want inaugurated, you liave a better chance now, and we 
"have a better chance to iiear expressions from you that are here 
than we ever have by mail from the other members. I think 
there is no doubt but what we would be guided largely by the 
expression here, on any matter of jiolicy of the Society. 
You realize that we do not have very much chance to under- 
stand or know what you want done, liecause we come down and 
go into session on the Board and tlie only evidence we have before 
us is once in a wliik^ soniconc will come in or a letter will eonie 
in, and we will just have to feel our way on what the majority 
of the stockholders want. Here is a mighty good chance to have 
an ex]n-ession that will count. 
If we are through with that we shall be delighted to lieai 
from the old secretary of this Society, who has been the friend 
of the Percheron brciMU'i-.^. and who did excellent work for us 
before he retired and wa^ >iU ( ( edt'd by Mr. McFarland. I should 
like to hear from our old friend. Wayne Dinsmore. Secretary of 
the Horse Association of America. (Applause.) 
Mr. Dinsmore: "^Mr. President. ^Members of the Percheron 
Society of America. Ladies and Gentlemen : 
In recent years the dairy cattlemen, and their allied interests 
have organized a national movement to work in behalf of the 
dairy interests. The swine men did likewise. For the two years 
past the horsemen and allied interests have been working on such 
a movement in the preliminary work of which I have had some 
little part. It tinally came to a head last January when a new 
organization, known as the "Horse Association of America" was 
formed, with national headquarters here at the Union Stock 
Yards, and the ])urposc. as stated in the charter, is to aid, encour- 
age and promote the lireeding, raising and use of horses and mules. 
I have had to build u|i an entirely new organization, national 
in character. an<l to UTiify and brin;^ together these live gicat 
groups, consisting of the saddleiy nu'n. the hay and grain men, 
the feed men, the horseshoe men, the wagon and carriage men, 
and the horsemen. Those five groups have been unaccustomed 
to working together. 
Briefly, proof exists that horses and mules furnish the most 
efficient, reliable and economical motive power in city hauls within 
a working radius, and on certain types of constructive work, 
such as building work. Proof also exists that horses and mules 
are the most economical and most efficient and are the most 
reliable in farm work, whether it be on large or small farms. 
Until the Horse Association of America came into being no 
organization existed which could gather that proof, from all cities 
and states. Theic was no one to verify, publish and distribute 
those facts. That is the function of the Horse Association of 
America. During tlie ten years past when the horsemen, the 
mule men and tiie allied industries have been idling on their 
oars, due to the inditl'eicnee and the apathy of these interests, 
the advocates of other types of motive power have made tre- 
mendous headway. They have made monkeys out of all of us. 
They have gone through us and over us because we have simply 
sat back and said: "Oh well, this is merely a passing fad which 
will burn itself out in time." but let me tell you we must be 
doing something. 
We have enough information from the census today to enable 
us to say that in the last ten years one-third of all the horses 
that were at work, of all the horses and mules that were at work 
on the streets, and one-third of those in non-agricultural work 
in towns have been displaced by other types of mechanical motive 
power. That means that in the last ten years the number of 
horses working in cities and towns have been reduced, and they 
have been reduced by a million, one hundred thousand head. 
Do not get the idea that mechanical motive power is more 
economical or efficient than horses and mules. It is not. There 
is another important thing in this connection and this is the dis- 
jilacement of horses and mules on the farms. The mules on farms 
liave decreased, but the increase in lioises has been more than 
the decrease in mules, and the net result is that we find our- 
selves eonfriinted with a loss of nine hundred thousand head on 
the farms and ranches of this country. 
For the first time in tlie history of the United States we 
have more horses in non-agricult\iial work, fewer horses and mules 
in agrioiltui'al work than ever before; more than two million 
head less than we had ten years ago. Because horses and mules 
are the by-products of the American farm, no one produces them 
solely for sale. No intelligent farmer will try to do his work 
without the proper power. You raise colts to replace those horses 
that are older and which you send to the city when they are 
seven or eight years old, before they depreciate. Your horses and 
mules are, therefore, a by-product of the American farm. 
Aside from destroying one of the great markets for one of 
the bv-i)roducts of . the Anu^rican farm, mechanical motive power 
has helped to destroy a market for such products as hay and 
grain. Those two million odd horses and mules, and the million 
that have been destroyed, if still in existence, would have utilized 
one hundred thirteen million bushels of oats, seventeen million 
bushels of colli, and more than four thousand, three hundred 
foiirtei'ii iiii)lioii tons of hay. That is a market greater than our 
average expoitations during the last live years, four of which 
were war years when exportation of grain was extraordinarily 
heavy. 
^^'e iiave sutlViid in three ways. The business man has suf- 
fered by the introduction of mechanical ])ower for it has greatly 
increased his e\peiises and it is going to cost more than any work 
which horses and mules can do. The introduction of mechanical 
motive |io\\(r merely increases the expense without increasing 
the ellieiency. We have abundant proof of that. 
So I say, talk horse, believe in horses and mules. Do not pay 
any attention to the talk of advocates of mechanical motive power, 
for after all they are sent to do their jobs, and to put their types 
of power in the place of the horse and the mule. They claim they 
can do the work a horse or mule can do, but they cannot. They 
are al)S(dutely wrong, and they do not care one cent whether it 
pays you or not. They sell you a tractor, and they get your 
money, and they are imt interested in what happens afterwards. 
They are not interested in what becomes of you, and whether 
it costs you a great many dollars more for your motive power 
than it did Ix'fore you bought the mechanical power. They have 
sold \()u the ineclianiial jiower and that is all they are interested 
in. They are not interested in the least if you found it unsatis- 
factory. 
For the first time in history, combinations of men in other 
lines of industry have gone down into their pockets and dug up 
real money to help push the horse and mule business. The saddlery 
men. and their organization alone has raised .$40,000 this year 
and the other organizations have come through with money, so 
that we have in less than eight months' time raised almost seventy 
thousand dollars to carry out the work in behalf of the horses 
and mules of this country. 
It is skilled salesmanship that is putting over these mechanical 
motive i)ower schemes. We are trying to get the men who bit 
on mechanical motive power and found it unsatisfactory, to tell 
us their story so we can tell others and thereby prevent them from 
making the same mistake. I thank you." (Applause.) 
Mr. H. J. McLaughlin: I move we adjourn. 
Mr. Dunham: I second the motion. 
Vice President Burdick: All in favor signify by saying 
"Aye." Contrary. Motion prevails. The meeting is adjourned. 
ADJOURNMENT 
The Annual Meeting of the Board of Directors immediately 
following the adjournment of the stockholders' meeting was held 
in Room 1128 of the Congress Hotel. 
Directors present: U. L. Burdick, Otho Pollock, Wm. Dan- 
forth, Arthur Colegrove. H. J. McLaughlin, W, S. Corsa, W. S. 
Dunham, Ed Nicodemus and C. F. Curtiss. 
E. B. White was re-elected President; U L. Burdick was 
re-elected Vice President; C. N. Stanton was re-elected Treasurer; 
Ellis McFarland was elected as Secretary for a term of three 
years. E. Hayden was ajipointed as chief clerk. W. S. Corsa 
was elected to represent the Percheron Society of America in the 
National Society of Record Associations for the ensuing year. 
It was moved that the Board adjourn. Seconded and passed. 
